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Costly “Care”

I was reading “Young Immortal Care” about getting young people to sign up for Obamacare in your Best of Utah issue [March 27, City Weekly]. I can understand why anyone, young or old, would be reluctant to sign up for Obamacare.

I was helping my stepdaughter sign up for Obamacare because she could not afford the health-care options offered at her workplace. The least expensive health-care option was offered by Humana Health Care and was $144 a month for a family plan. It paid for absolutely nothing until she reached the deductible of $12,600. It also did not include dental, so she would have to buy a separate dental plan. The monthly fee does not go toward the deductible, so she would have to go to the doctor 50 times in a year for this plan to start paying for anything.

It is basically catastrophe insurance. She would only have to pay roughly half the cost of a burst appendix, but a broken leg, she would have to pay for herself. For a single mother trying to raise two kids on her own, $144 a month is a lot of money. But if she doesn’t pay it, she gets fined 1 percent of her gross annual income—about $250.

It’s extortion, plain and simple. It’s like going to the store and deciding you don’t want to buy their $1,500 product. Then you find out that the doors are locked and you have to pay $250 to get out.